Spurs struggling to finish off rivals,
The trouble with Tottenham Hotspur, captain Hugo Lloris said ahead of tomorrow’s crucial Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven, is that they still need to learn how to manage a game.
His comments followed a victory on Saturday in which Tottenham had led 3-0, only to end the 90 minutes desperately defending an advantage that a committed response from the home side had cut to just a single goal. That slightly took the shine off their achievement in moving ahead of Arsenal and into the top four in the Premier League.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino, in part reacting to Gary Neville’s controversial suggestion last week that Tottenham teams historically have been “spineless” in big moments, league, winning 12 – including the past four. congratulated his players for showing “very strong character” in the team’s third match in six days.
Lloris, by contrast, complained that it was not the first time they had let a team cause them unnecessary problems through poor game management.
“When we scored the third goal, we thought we had won the game,” he said. “But we are in the Premier League, and it is never done. You always need concentration.
“It is not the first time this has happened in the Champions League and in the league, that the opponent created chances in the last minutes. It is something we need to improve. We have to be more clever with the ball and without the ball.
“We could have managed the game today in a different way. Whatever the score, 0-0, 3-0 or 1-0 down, we try to play the same way. But at 3-0, you don’t have to press.
“We have shown in the last few years that Tottenham have a way of playing, and we try to respect the plan – but I think there are a lot of things to learn. We cannot control everything in the game, but we can do better with the ball.”
To be fair to Pochettino, while he was plainly in the mood to underline the virtues of his squad, he was not oblivious to the shortcomings that concerned his captain.
“We need to learn that to play seriously is to not make mistakes, don’t concede or give the opponents a cheap opportunity to stay in the game,” he said. “I’m happy with the three points, but disappointed, because we are talking about experienced players, not younger ones who can learn.”
Pochettino has headaches in addition to matters of game management, however.
Already without several players through injury and with concerns about managing the fitness of others, such as Dele Alli, rested after making his comeback from a hamstring injury last week, and Christian Eriksen, he is now sweating on what his medical staff find after key midfielder Mousa Dembele had to be withdrawn early with an ankle injury.
“We will not know how bad it is until he has been assessed,” he said.
Tottenham struck twice in three minutes in the first half through Erik Lamela and Lucas Moura and added a third against the run of play when Harry Kane scored, shortly after Lloris had been forced to make good saves from Raul Jimenez, Helder Costa and Ruben Neves.
Wolves, who had a first-half goal ruled out incorrectly for offside, re-